Posts Tagged ‘learning’

One of the most overlooked aspects of hiring expertise, is separating great teachers (how to do it) from great intellects (what to do). The former is a lot more valuable.

If you are novice standing on a riverbank trying to learn to fish for trout, as I was last week, we often run into passionate “intellects”, who seek to tell you everything they know about casting in a given moment. When what we really need is a great teacher, who excels at discussion, practice, feedback and application in that very same moment and exudes patience.

Who do your clients see you as? Is that the same person you see yourself as?

If you are a success, why wouldn’t you act like a success at a high profile occasion? Looking at countless celebrity male guests at the Royal Wedding (George Clooney, James Haskell and endless others), where your “dress” is a very clear mark of respect to your hosts, there wasn’t much respect on display to the Prince of Wales and Ms Markle’s mother. Why would you let down your spouse or partner, who has gone to a huge effort to earn respect? Which is it, “I conform to no one” (ego), “I am not familiar with local customs” (ignorant) or “the airline lost my bags” (unbelievable). If “manners maketh man”, many of us watching are in a state of confusion about some male celebrities’ beliefs that inform their behaviour, or perhaps, more likely we saw the less-appealing real man behind the PR-tinted lens.

I just finished reading a quite brilliant book, Lifestorming by Alan Weiss and Marshall Goldsmith. Marshall reminds the reader of one of his most powerful learning points from arguably one of the smartest minds over the past century, American businessman, Peter Drucker. I smiled when I reflected upon how frequently I am asked to correct this behaviour in my own work, particularly amongst entrepreneurs and private equity investors building businesses.

An excessive amount of time is wasted

Trying to prove how right we are (brilliant idea, investment decision-taking) and how good we are (vanity) with ourselves and our key constituents when the real objective should be to maximise the positive difference we are able to make in the life we choose to lead, and the world we live in.

Trying to control events or issues where we have ceded or have zero power over the outcome.

The private equity or venture investor doesn’t have to invest. The entrepreneur doesn’t have to accept the investment. When they do accept majority investment, the entrepreneur ceases to have the ultimate decision-making power. Don’t whine or somehow think you retain superpowers, you really don’t, concentrate on making a positive difference within those constraints. If you don’t like the constraints, let it go and move on. The same applies to capricious General Partners feeling that the private equity model is underappreciated in the wider world or when power has shifted from their investee businesses to their customers or competitors.

A case in point, yesterday’s headline sale to Disney of large chunks of the Murdoch empire, is just that recognition that the Murdochs cease to have the power to positively impact their family’s and their assets’ future within the constraints laid down (market competition). Letting go is a common sense response, nothing more.

“We need more investors, can you help?” is a request I hear daily from entrepreneurs and executives, co-investors and seasoned corporate finance experts. The obvious response is “yes, maybe or no”. Sometimes the obvious is not the most helpful to gain control of the conversation and kick start movement. Let’s frame the real “need”. Remove the irrelevant, focus on the relevant information. You will get dramatically quicker towards your goal.

You’ve asked for capital raising assistance. Are you talking about your ability to attract follow-on investments from your current investors, new investments from your current investors, new investors for your current businesses or new investors for new businesses? What is it exactly?

Then, I am curious where is your current marketing time and money being deployed? Is it being directed to all investors, or those within a specific geography, deal size, stage, investor type? There are 5 generic types of investor for you. Those that are apathetic, pretenders, aspirants, serial developers and leading-edge investors. The first three make up the majority of your audience and are the most price-sensitive, the final two are highly value-driven. Who exactly are you currently talking to? Would you recognise the differences (past relationships, capabilities, substance, style etc)? Let’s agree who you should be talking to?

Then, what are the existing or anticipated needs or needs that you can create for your ideal investors that you are uniquely able to address? How is your investor better off or personally better supported after realising their investment with your help? (Financial, intellectual, social, cultural improvements)

Then, who ideally has a need now or one that could be readily developed for that “return” on their investment? Who has the means and authority to approve the investment? Who can move quickly? Who is not overly prescriptive about the your “past”?

How do you best reach those investors and they you? (referrals, networking, publishing, speaking, awards, media interviews etc)

How do you create the ideal conditions? (eager to meet you, strong word-of-mouth)

How do you create the ideal time? (no disruptions, no delays)

How do you create the ideal location? (neutral, zero distractions)

How do you create the strongest first impression? (impressive content, credibility, rapport)

What competitive, distinctive or leading-edge offerings do you have to draw them in as a current or a future investor? (increasing investment, intimacy)

Are there gaps where you need to add new offerings or to create greater differentiation (value) between existing investor offerings?

What have you jointly agreed to do next? (exchange information, call, meeting)

You can see quickly here that framing your investor question, creates a dramatically sharper point on your arrow.

“There is nothing special about Stanford, everyone around the Bay Area tech scene has been there”.

Those were the throwaway words from a West Coast adviser, when I first mentioned that I had been asked to speak to this year’s class in Stanford’s Continuing Education program. Of course, those comments were directed to the university students, not the global audience of largely mature students and entrepreneurs enthusiastically engaged in a discussion about capital raising. Here is my findings from a really informative session:

The dynamics of raising money at any stage are largely similar but the consequences vary immensely. When less than 25% of seed-funded startups fail to get to the third funding round (they have died, been acquired or are self-sustaining), many entrepreneurs overlook the importance of building and nurturing really strong personal support systems. Family, friends and wise counsellors, who have your best interests at heart, are willing to provide frank solicited advice and a supportive shoulder, when it doesn’t work out.

The in vogue buzzwords are “agile money”. I prefer to talk about “resilient money.” Finding investors sufficiently agile to adapt to your changing needs is helpful but finding those that are sufficiently resilient in the tough and the good times, is really the gold standard.

More than 80% of the class are positive about tech investment in the next 12 months and don’t believe we are in a tech bubble.

Students often ask tougher questions of themselves than serial entrepreneurs. “How do I give myself the best shot at being a successful entrepreneur?” Perhaps it is the desire not to repeat others mistakes or the willingness to readily invest in improving their own skills, behavioural traits and expertise. Too often the mindset flips for the entrepreneur in the real world, “let’s save every cent”, when investing in their own personal needs (mentor, coach, advisor) is critical to their success.

More than 60% are intrigued by corporate venture capital but certainly not beholden to its’ charms. Great question, “Why are corporate businesses suddenly experts in startup investing?” Many believe that CVCs remain highly susceptible to short-term changes in executive decision-making.

Entrepreneurs learn best when they are willing to be vulnerable. In our case, to jump into the role play seat with little preparation and test their abilities to direct the conversation with an investor towards their desired goal.

Understanding the distinctions between public and private investors such as a traditional VC Fund, a Family Office and a Corporate Venture Capital fund requires thinking about the future, not just the present or the past. What are their highest potential future needs? How are you uniquely qualified to address those needs?

We over estimate geographical differences. A multi-lingual global audience of 75 entrepreneurs drawn from 5 continents, brought together by a singular objective, to learn the shortest quickest route to their desired objectives.

Technology won’t replace “in the classroom” learning but tools such as Zoom, enable an increasingly intimate learning experience that certainly narrows the gap, at a a fraction of the cost for the host, guest lecturer and students.

There is something special about Stanford – its’ global brand power. The ability to charge a premium price for global learning, to attract globally re-known lecturers and a culturally diverse group of students. I learn more than the students at these events and I can highly recommend it to others.

In this Trumpian era where people are encouraged to say anything however crass or non-sensical to get noticed on social media platforms, I see so called business advisers increasingly adopting the tactic.

Today on Hotels the global hotel industry’s foremost media blog, a guest contributor and acclaimed expert, writes a two part post suggesting the industry is retarded if it doesn’t adopt a nickel and dimeing strategy! His point is that hotels need to follow car rental and airlines in better educating their customers about the hidden value they are providing, the best way to accomplish that is to charge them for every extra. I read the posts twice to check it wasn’t April 1.

What the writer fails to consider is how much more customers would pay if the product was better. It is this type of poverty mentality that kills growth businesses.

Don’t be drawn into a fool’s wisdom just because it is seemingly coming from a highly credible source. Ridiculous advice really says more about the source’s credibility than the advice itself.

Most of us, particularly those entering into or in the second half of their careers are increasingly in peril because our personal and professional networks are not strong enough or sufficiently relevant for the challenges that lie ahead. If the objective is to transition seamlessly, you dramatically increase the odds by identifying, cultivating and nurturing the right relationships now. You don’t accomplish this by relying on a burgeoning contacts folder, LinkedIn database or Twitter account made up of people, who have long past their usefulness to you or random names.

Who are the five most influential people in your personal and professional life today? Who are likely to be the five most influential people in your future personal and professional life? What needs to change in how you establish, build and leverage your key relationships?

I ask this question because in profitably growing and expanding a business, our networks and the utility of those relationships are fiercely tested. Whether it is launching successfully into a new market or the speed and quality of an organisation’s reinvention it is heavily dependent on your lists, databases and the warmth of your relationships. Who you know is as important as what you know? How you have been providing immediate value is as important as how you resolve the client’s problem or improve their condition? Time, skills, volition and technology are the key enablers.

Personal Time – how much time in a week is spent renewing relationships and cultivating new ones that discernibly help you with BOTH current and potential future needs? You are all almost certainly spending too much time with people who cannot help you in future. You are doing so because it is easy or safe. You must be concious of the return on your time invested.

Skills Deficit – do you possess the skills, strategically, to decide who you need to cultivate to accomplish your goals and tactically, how to ask for the introduction, how to best present it in their self-interest and how to elicit your desired response? If you don’t get professional help.

Volition – are you maintaining the right mindset? Where do you currently sit on the spectrum, the “Know It All, Know Everyone” (no need to learn new ideas from new people) or the “Intellectually Curious” (drawn to meeting new and impressive people with thoughts on what the future will resemble)? Do you feel comfortable in all social and business settings approaching others, who you may not know and seeking to establish a relationship? Are your best efforts de-railed by “fear” (being made a fool, rejection, in the specific setting)? The latter is a common occurrence even in successful mid-level managers. Conquering it is essential for career progression.

Technology – are your efforts to cultivate new relationships and renew existing relationships with the help of technology having a dramatically positive, negligible or negative impact on both your short and long-term goals? Where is the hard evidence? Where do you need forward-looking help to enhance your personal productivity? To whom are you turning for “qualified” advice? A huge number of executives and managers have allowed their lives to conform to their firm’s technology, in so doing, they are working extreme hours to stay on top of client email, return prospects calls and nurture effective relationships. That doesn’t have to be the case if they are willing collectively to intellectually examine whether there is a better alternative to conform technology to their clients changing needs.

“Your contacts are your lifeblood” one of my first bosses said to me. What I have observed working with some outstanding peers, business partners and clients, is that they need constant attention, cleansing, and good nutrients. If left to their own devices, they will coagulate in ways that are not good for my future health and well-being.

Endlessly overwhelmed by the demands of profitably growing your business? Want to find quick ways to increase the valuable use of your time and reduce your labour intensity? Here is 7 instant improvements that will give you an 5 extra working days every quarter this year and more impressive results:

XpenseTracker – an all inclusive expense tracking and reporting app for business or personal use

Refresh Letters and Templates – every step of your organisation’s client acquisition process, methodology/technology and delivery process to your clients, can reasonably be broken down into a toolkit. Many people waste endless time unclear in their own mind what to write and how to rapidly elicit the response they really want. Stop it. Whether it is a cold call letter, follow up meeting response, response to a media enquiry, meeting agendas, proposal template, chasing overdue invoices, presenting findings and so forth don’t reinvent the wheel. Constantly replenish your toolkit and use technology (intranet, cloud servers etc) to leverage it.

Reciprocal Promotion: find 5 publications and reporters your ideal buyers read and are quoted in. Follow those reporters on Twitter, Google+ and other social media platforms. Respond to stories they post with thoughtful and provocative responses. Look out for their presence at industry events and introduce yourself in person. From time to time, suggest article or interview ideas or names of others that might be particularly of interest. You’ll find yourself, increasingly short cutting the process of becoming an object of interest to your ideal buyers, irrespective of your firm’s brand, geographic proximity or other credentials.

Hootsuite – so you want to build a social media presence but don’t know how to accomplish that with minimal time. The Hootsuite app is your lifesaver, allowing you to access, schedule and generate fresh and valuable content.

Citymapper – so you are meeting a new client or exploring a new city with the family, yet unsure how to get from where you are standing to your destination, what the alternatives are and your expected time of arrival. Arguably one of the impressive travel apps ever created provides all those answers and more in real time on your smart phone.

Unroll.me – your frustration with junk email and subscriptions that you never knew you had has reached epidemic proportions. Two bright people, Josh Rosenwald and Jojo Hedaya have transformed the way you view email. Allowing you to instantly and permanently unsubscribe, roll up daily emails into a single email for quick scanning and storage of those most pertinent to your life. How good does that feel? Try it now.

Tiny Scanner – you need to quickly scan, save and send a receipt, a meeting handout or tracked changes for a presentation while working away from the office or home. Here is the simple, fast and highly reliable answer, a brilliant app with free and modestly priced paid options for the iPhone.

Pick any of the above and you will conservatively save yourself a minimum 1 hour a day, 5 hours in a normal working week, 65 hours in a quarter. Think about that, I am suggesting every three months, you can create an additional 5 working days, at zero cost to you!

One of the joys of autumn in England is escaping to the countryside at the weekend and taking a lazy walk that often ends up at a friendly watering hole. On many of those walks at this time of the year, you pass bushes laden with ripe blackberries and horse chestnut trees laden with conkers. Inevitably, you are not the first to spot them and indeed, many of the obvious places have been stripped bare. On occasion, where the light has created a shadow or stinging nettles have made it difficult to reach them, a plentiful supply of “virgin” berries and conkers sit waiting to be picked with a little ingenuity.

I see the very same situation with many of my best clients. They have an uncanny knack of looking where their competitors have partially or fully withdrawn and spotting difficulties their competitors face that hide profitable growth opportunities for them. What they are skilled at is deciding whether their competitor’s growth difficulties are important. If they are, they dig to find the cause, what are the business fundamentals (market demand, marketing, sales, delivery etc), what has changed in one of those fundamentals to turn the competitor negative on the opportunity and what would we need to do to profit from their difficulties.

When you receive feedback from your sales team, your clients, your prospects, analysts and media reports, can you spot profit in your competitor’s growth difficulties? If so, jump on it immediately. Christmas has arrived early.

Here is a few reflections from the largest global casino, lottery, mobile and social gaming event, ICE Totally Gaming 2015, held in London this week:

With regulation on a par to the nuclear and energy sectors, can investors really be sure that the valuations for most gaming businesses today have adequately priced changes in regulatory risk?

Industry faces unparalleled level of intrusion. In the next 5 years a prominent gaming or lottery business will be a target of cyber terrorism from those whose values conflict with gaming and lottery operators.

When the overt marketing message is pushing girls in skimpy outfits with bad fake tans rather like a tired 197os porn film, does it really create a seductive rapport to your brand and its’ products and services or signal that your business has runs out of new ideas and excitement?

The sector doesn’t lack for people with abundant enthusiasm but it does lack abundant leadership prowess. Crossing that divide arguably biggest challenge.

When the immersive mobile and social gaming experience is so life-like why get on a plane or train to travel to Las Vegas or a London casino with the added cost of rooms, food and beverage and transport?

The future of gaming and lotteries is either (1) a fully immersive gaming offering or (2) fully immersive gamification

“Live” gaming experiences (casinos, sports betting, and so on) will close in even bigger numbers this year, when the consumer can find more excitement and value at home or in other pursuits.

The failure of major casino, sports betting and lottery operators to embrace innovation within their business will preface exponential growth in reactive/defensive investment in early-stage growth business this year.

Technology vendors in the sector face an increasing gulf between the “have’s” (knowledge, capital and scale) and the “have nots” predicating increased merger and acquisition activity in 2015. (IGT-GTech, Amaya and Scientific Games just the start).

Government agencies that are tethered to outdated legislation (Canada, US, Europe) are accelerating the irrelevance of regulated gaming and lottery products as the market diverges with changing customer preferences, demographics and so on. Expect greater friction and legal disputes in the next 12 months.

With few barriers to entry, the sector doesn’t lack for entrepreneurs wanting to create and build businesses but how many really “cash out” with a meaningful cheque? Expert a rise in incubators, accelerators and corporate venturing in the next 12-24 months.

While ICE like G2E has positioned itself as a “go to” trade show event, the learning opportunities (seminars and conferences) and the value derived from them are still no greater than 4/10. Organisers, sponsors and participants have a lot of work to do to attract a more impressive crowd. Expect the smarter exhibitors to fill this thought leadership “gap” in the next 12-24 months.